A note on the words: chijimi is the Japanese name for the Korean savory pancake, a loose batter fried flat and cut into squares. Nira is garlic chives, a flat-leafed green with a garlic edge to it. Rayu is Japanese chili oil, sesame oil steeped with red pepper. Gyoza are pan-fried dumplings; tteokbokki are Korean rice cakes in a sweet-hot sauce; karaage is Japanese fried chicken, marinated and coated in starch before frying; and hamburg steak is a ground-meat patty served without a bun. Mapo tofu is tofu simmered with ground meat, chili and fermented bean paste. Otoshi is the small appetizer an izakaya (Japanese pub) brings out whether you order it or not, and it stands in for a cover charge. A highball is whisky and soda. Meshi simply means a meal, which is where this blog gets its name.
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Akai Tsubo on Tabelog (English) — opening hours, payment details and the Japanese address are kept up to date there, not here.
Hello, this is Hangover Meshi. If you are into food that fights back, you will know Akai Tsubo, the spice specialist in Omotesando. It occurred to me that I had never once been, so this time I went along with some friends who like it hot. The place is in Omotesando, on a side street one block in from Aoyama-dori. You climb the narrow stairs at the entrance, and.
a lovely smell of spices comes drifting down ^^
This being my first time at Akai Tsubo, we decided to work through the a la carte.
The menu runs from No-heat through Heat 1 and Heat 2 and on up to Heat 7. Beyond that: Heat 8, which you can take on only after signing a waiver (!! ha), then, once you have finished that, Heat 9, Heat 10 and Heat 11. Going in at the top from the start would obviously hurt, so we worked up bit by bit ^^
So, after we had ordered the first highball, out came the otoshi.
Well, of course it was not scorching right from the start — I could barely feel any heat at all.
The gyoza, so good, ha.
Hot and good, this one. The gyoza themselves are not hot at all and taste great, but the dipping sauce is hot. Not too hot, though — comfortably inside the delicious range. This one might be a recommendation. Officially the level is Heat 4, apparently.
When I went to order another highball, they told me that if you order it by the pitcher you get kimchi the first time round, so here is that kimchi.
Looks great. It tasted great too. The cheese holds the heat down properly, so Heat 2 makes sense.
Now, this one is Heat 3. Although what exactly makes something Heat 3 is open to debate, ha.
The fried chicken itself is certainly Heat 3. But then there are these chilies. They told us they are fried crisp so it is fine to eat them, so I bit into one, and it is pretty hot, ha. Well, obviously it is — but if you are going to crunch through the chilies, this is not a Heat 3, more like a Heat 6 by feel? Ha. Do be careful.
This one is on the milder side. It is Heat 3, but about as hot as mapo tofu generally is. Good.
This is the one where you get to decide how many pieces there are and how many are loaded. There were five of us, so five pieces, three of them hot.
Sadly (?) I did not draw one, so I never found out how hot they were, but the bite-size hamburg steaks that were not hot were extremely good, ha.
This one is hot as well, but not as much as you might think — more the kind of gentle heat that has you saying, this is nice, isn’t it.
What is good about this place is that the cooking is strong all round.
This is the seriously hot one. Heat 7. But is it really all that? It is hot. Certainly hot, but at a level that is still perfectly delicious. Honestly, my whole reaction was, yes, that is properly hot. Tasty, though.
Deep-fried garlic, ha. Around this point, the people who cannot take heat start picking the No-heat items.
Incidentally, if you order the rescue set, they give you a set of chocolates, ha.
Right, we have the measure of Heat 7, shall we go for Heat 8 then! And here is what arrived after we signed the waiver. Squid and nira habanero chijimi. I have a feeling they told us how many habaneros go into a single piece, but I have forgotten. Blew my head off would be the more accurate way to put it. Up to Heat 7 it had all been ordinary. It was not supposed to be a big deal.
This Heat 8 is another thing entirely, ha.
Seriously hot, ha ha. I said, right, I will take the biggest piece then, and threw it in, and for a moment it is good. But straight after comes this prickling pain, ha ha ha.
Ugggghhh, hot!!!!
One piece of this and you are completely finished, that is the level of hot, ha. Everyone went quiet and worked through their drinks in silence, ha. My tongue, the pain of it. The best way to calm it down is to suck on the ice from your highball. It settles after a while (though it does go on for a fair bit), so hold on and get through it. Man, that is hot. I caught a glimpse of what this place can really do. I give in, ha.
What on earth happens at Heat 11, ha.
We finished by taking the heat off with sweets!
So — up to a point I honestly thought it was all easy, but Heat 8 is very hot indeed, so do be careful, ha. That said, below that the deliciousness stands out more than the heat does, so I thought this is a really good place to gather at if you simply like hot food. Everyone getting wiped out by Heat 8 at the end makes a good memory too ^^ Maybe I will go again next winter.
Akai Tsubo (Izakaya / Omotesando Station, Gaienmae Station, Meiji-jingumae Station)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★☆☆ 3.5
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
